


Rainbows and Lazy Days

by Calacious



Series: Ho oku i [19]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Breakfast, Family Feels, Fluff, Kissing, Lounging, Love, M/M, Married Life, Morning thoughts, happiness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-15
Updated: 2017-02-19
Packaged: 2018-05-20 15:57:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6015250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calacious/pseuds/Calacious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Danny and Steve lounge in bed after wrapping up a tough case.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Rainbows

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the following song: "Bottom of a Rainbow," by Kimie Miner
> 
> Happy Valentine's Day to those who celebrate it.

["Bottom of a Rainbow," Kimie Miner](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86KeJNK4rXw) (link to the song, if you would like to listen)

* * *

 

In Danny's experience, lazy mornings lead directly into lazy afternoons, and today is no exception.

The crack in the blinds that Danny's always complaining about lets in a sliver of the sun's light. It bounces off the crystal pattern in the glass of water on the nightstand, sends rainbow shards everywhere, coloring the room in shades of purple, yellow, red and green. The color dances on the ceiling, captures the stubble on Steve's chin, makes it look garish, his cheeks look gaunt and hollow. They've been running on empty for days now, and Danny's tired. So's Steve.

Nowadays, it's not often that he gets to sleep in, but when he does, he takes advantage, lounges in bed until early afternoon, sometimes later if he can. If Steve doesn't pull him out of bed to go on some kind of island adventure that starts at the crack of dawn and ends long after the sun's gone down, and the air's grown cool. Almost reminds Danny of his old home. The memories are lacking in color, though, without Steve in them.

Steve isn't a lounger, but this morning-afternoon, he indulges Danny's need to just lie around and do nothing, but explore each other's bodies. It's needed today, after the case they've just closed.

The back of Steve's left knee is ticklish; kissing the insole of his right foot makes Steve's back arch; and blowing on Steve's bellybutton makes the man's toes curl, his hips roll.

They hold each other in a loose embrace, kiss - all lips, no tongue - and fool around - fingers and lips teasing responses.

Neither of them is in a rush today, which is a good thing. They need more days like this where there's nowhere to be, and nothing to do, but each other.

Danny's reminded of the day they married, of their honeymoon, waking with Steve curled against him, chilled by the cool mountain air. No heat, but that which was between them.

He realizes that, in many ways, they were married long before they exchanged vows. That, there's no other person he'd rather wake up next to, whether it be before the sun rises, or long after the sun's broken through the clouds that are often scattered throughout the Hawaiian sky.

Fingers trail along Danny's rib cage. Gentle, yet strong in their caress, claiming every inch of Danny's skin, marking him in rippling goose-flesh.

It's days like this that remind Danny that the best things in life are not hidden in safe deposit boxes; he's got all he needs right here, right now, ensconced within cool, wrinkled linens, and the tattooed body of the man he loves more than life itself.


	2. La Da La Da

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danny wakes before Steve, and it's revelation time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by Twenty One Pilots - "Before You Start Your Day". 
> 
> I was listening to their self titled album and this song stopped me, and begged a story, and this is what resulted.

["Before You Start Your Day" - Twenty One Pilots](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEJhMSH2OEA)

It's one of those days. Cold and gray in appearance. Overly oppressive with muggy heat in reality. Danny can just make out traces of the early morning gloom through the window where the blinds don't quite close. Clouds sit heavy in the air, filled to brimming with rain that will not fall until late afternoon, or early the next day.   
  
His heart is heavy, too, overfull with love that feels like a vice gripping his heart, squeezing, squeezing until love, like water in a cup, spills over. And he closes his eyes, runs his fingers through his lover's hair, not as short as he likes to keep it.   
  
He wonders at the gift of this: waking up lying next to the man he loves. More often tangled up in long, muscled limbs, and sheets damp with cooled sweat, skin warmed by body heat prickling with the tiny bumps of goose flesh as the cooler morning air hits.  
  
And he's awake. Longing. Wondering what the day ahead has planned for them. If the dark clouds, weighted down with water, are an omen of ill-luck, and death, or silver-lined with unspoken promises that will be revealed after the rain falls. He's come to love the snatches of rainbows that grace the skies of his chosen home.   
  
There's a song, the melody of it plays at the edge of his memory, and the words escape him completely except for the refrain, and he's not even certain that he's got that right. Something about, singing and being in someone's mind, and a number of la da la da's. He's not sure where he's heard it before. Maybe playing on Grace's phone, or the car radio on the morning drive to the office.  
  
Opening his eyes, he smiles, fingers trailing across slightly parted lips of his no longer slumbering lover. Eyes slit open, the blue of which is murky at this early hour, a match to the gloomy clouds, and Steve rolls into the touch, lips and tongue brushing against Danny's knuckles as he blinks awake, movements lazy and cumbersome.  
  
It hits him then, like a sucker punch to the gut, burning in its intensity, that he loves this man, and that, no matter what the overcast sky portends, it'll be okay, because he's got this man by his side for eternity.   
  
They kiss. Morning tastes like the stench of sweaty socks and moldy bread, and Danny hopes never to wake to any flavor other than that of Steve's and their morning breath clashing and commingling, like waves breaking mid-ocean, carrying a surfer to shore.


	3. A Sunday Kind of Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Watching Steve prepare breakfast for him and his kids, Danny wonders how he got to be so lucky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by Etta James', "A Sunday Kind of Love". I was in the middle of making breakfast (okay, heating up a muffin from Starbucks) and this song came on, and my muffin was abandoned until this was written.
> 
> Please pardon the errors, my computer isn't working at the moment, and my tablet is a tad finicky. I hope that someone enjoys this sappy fluff.

["A Sunday Kind of Love" Etta James](https://youtu.be/TjiBj014t7g)

 

Half asleep, Danny watches Steve putter around the kitchen, as he gets breakfast ready. Blueberry, chocolate chip pancakes in the shape of hearts and what may or may not be Mickey and Minnie Mouse. Turkey bacon, Portuguese sausage, scrambled eggs, hash browns, and slices of fresh fruit and avocado line the counter. It's enough to feed an army. 

Danny sips at his coffee, eyes not quite ready to commit to remaining fully open. He yawns, and stretches, admires the way that Steve's muscles flex as he flips a pancake onto a plate of what appears to be an impressive model of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. 

Shirtless, and dressed in nothing but the pair of boxers that he wore to bed the night before, Steve's got his back to Danny, and he's humming some tune that Danny doesn't recognize. It's pleasant, and Danny closes his eyes for a few seconds to rest them. Wakes with a start at the twin sounds of sizzling and popping as Steve starts on the bacon, placing the massive tower of pancakes into the oven to keep them warm. 

The kids aren't up yet. Steve turns, offers Danny a smile as he refreshes his coffee, hand brushing against Danny's in a way that's pleasant and mildly arousing. They share a brief kiss, and Steve's back to manning the stove, humming, hips swaying to a music all his own, perfectly content to make breakfast for Danny and his kids as Danny watches, and tries to wake himself up. He knows this isn't a dream. 

Overwhelmed by his lover's actions, Danny blinks back a sudden onset of tears. He loves this man. The words and the sentiment get stuck in his throat, and Danny swallows a scalding mouthful of coffee to cover this moment of weakness. It's been a rough week. 

'Hell,' Danny thinks, moments from his past rush in, and as he watches them fly across his mind like a film that's been fast-forwarded; he realizes that they're all building up to this moment. And it's a wonderful moment, as far as moments in his life go. 

'It's been a rough life,' he amends. 'And I'm damn lucky to have a man like Steve in my life.'

This man, in so many ways, set in his own routines, has welcomed, not only Danny, but also Danny's children, and all of the emotional baggage that comes with the three of them, into his life without a single complaint. He's changed his ways, inserted Danny, Grace, and Charlie, into them as though it was nothing. As though not starting his day with a morning run or swim, and making an elaborate breakfast instead, cost him nothing. 

The handful of chocolate chips Steve throws into the next batch of pancakes (they're going to have to freeze some of them), the tug of a tight smile-grimace at the corners of his mouth, proves otherwise. It, this change in Steve's routine, the way he bends some of his beliefs to accommodate Danny's, and to see to the needs and wants of children who aren't his by blood, early on a Sunday morning, costs him everything. 

"I love you." Steve tosses the words over his shoulder, and Danny's heart jumps to his throat. 

"I love you, too." His voice is low, rough, and Danny palms at his eyes, feeling like a hormonal teen as a lone tear slips past. He doesn't want to see the look on Steve's face.

He feels the press of lips on the top of his head, the three words whispered there again.

"Stop thinking so much," Steve whispers, lips brushing against Danny's ear, making him shiver, making him feel warm and happy, and loved. "Enjoy your lazy Sunday morning. Grace and Charlie will be up soon. I thought we'd have a breakfast picnic on the beach. We'll probably miss the sunrise, but..."

Danny turns, captures Steve's face between his hands, and kisses him before he can say another word, and before Danny loses himself to tears again, because this is too much. Steve is too good, and Danny doesn't want this to be a dream. 

"I love you," he breathes the words out against Steve's mouth, feels a tug at the hem of his tee-shirt, and looks down into wide, blue eyes, and an upturned face. 

"Danno, kiss," Charlie says, puckering his lips expectantly. Danny blinks, and Steve chuckles. 

'Out of the mouths of babes,' Danny thinks, giving his son a kiss, and smiling at the way that the little boy smacks his lips loudly, and then turns to Steve, lips puckered for a morning kiss from the other man. 

He knows that things could have taken a different turn, and, watching Steve with his son in his arms, talking him through the best way to work lumps out of pancake batter, he wonders why he was worried about what Charlie would make of his and Steve's relationship. They'd been careful around the little boy, hiding their affection for each other as best they could. It's clear to Danny that they shouldn't have.

The boy practically worships Steve, and when they're together, he follows Steve around like a puppy. Something that Danny's going to have to address one day soon, before his son becomes a Navy SEAL in an attempt to be more like his Uncle Steve. 

Charlie's never seen Steve and Danny kiss before, though, and, until this moment, when he'd caught them unaware, Danny had been worried about the little boy's reaction.

Apparently, if the way that Charlie settles onto Steve's hip like it's the most natural thing in the world, resting his head against Steve's side, and pours pancake batter onto the skillet under Steve's supervision, Danny had been worried for nothing. But that's what he does more than anything else as a father, as a lover, as a detective. Worry. 

Grace's reaction to him and Steve when she catches them kissing, or making doe eyes at each other, however, is typical of teens the world over when they see their parents kiss, or outwardly express their love for each other. An indulgent, or impatient, roll of the eyes, or an, "Ew," that really means, 'Do you have to do that in public? You're embarrassing me.'

Grace walks in a few minutes later, movements slow, feet shuffling like her father's in the early morning, and she kisses him on the cheek. She wanders over to Charlie and Steve, peeks at what they're doing, and, when Charlie turns his lips toward her, she gives him a kiss, and, indulging the little boy, stands on her tiptoes to kiss Steve's cheek when he directs her to do so.

Danny's heart swells at the way that Steve blushes and ducks his head, murmurs, "Good morning," to Grace. 

Grace mumbles a, "Morning," and stifles a yawn as she shuffles into place next to Danny, pulls up a chair at the table , and rests her head on her arms. 

"It's too early to be awake," she complains, and she closes her eyes, blindly reaching for Danny's cup of coffee, and pouting when he pulls it out of her reach. 

"Mom--"

"Isn't here now, and this isn't a weak cup of some name brand frappe-latte-mocha-chino-whatchmacalit," Danny says, enduring his daughter's impressive pout with mild amusement. She's growing up way too quickly, and though it's just a sip of coffee, Danny's afraid of what else that will lead to. 

"Here, Grace." Steve, Charlie still balanced on his hip, hands Grace some kind of smoothie. He winks at Danny, and smiles when Grace takes a hesitant sip, and seems to perk up as she drinks more of the concoction. Danny doesn't want to know what's in it. Ignorance is bliss when it comes to Steve's smoothies. 

Danny mouths a, 'Thank you,' over Grace's bent head, and is rewarded with a blinding smile, and another kiss, from both Steve, and his son. One life-affirming, the other rather like being kissed by a Susie-wets-a-lot doll mixed with an over enthusiastic German Shepherd. 

'As far as lazy Sunday mornings go, this has all the rest beat,' Danny thinks, and he sips at his coffee, watches his family, heart swelling with love and pride, and a sense of humbling awe that he can take part in this. Amazed that he's a part of something so wonderful.


	4. Not Just Another I Love You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve doesn't want to be just another, "I Love You," in Danny's life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Early morning writing inspired by, "Just Another Lover," Common Kings. Another case of being moved by the music, and needing to write. Whether or not it's right, I'm going to trust spell-check with regard to each others not requiring an apostrophe. It's morning. My brain is not completely online yet.

There's more to love than the three coveted words, and Steve doesn't want to be just another, 'I love you,' in Danny's life. The man has plenty of those. Steve's not jealous, but he wants to be the person that Danny can count on, no matter what. He wants to be there for Danny - always, and until the end of time.

It's sappy, and Steve almost cringes away from the sentiment, but when Danny turns over in his sleep, arm flopping onto Steve's chest like it belongs there (and it does), Steve is hard pressed to feel any other way than completely, madly, deeply in love.

And it's a feeling so real that it's almost painful. It makes Steve's chest ache just to think about being anywhere else than here, now, in bed with Danny.

_Awake. Asleep. Making love. Fucking. Just kissing and stroking each other._ It doesn't matter what state they're in, or what they're doing to or with each other. All that matters is that they're doing it together, forever content to be each others lover. Each others everything.


	5. Love is as Simple as Sitting on a Couch, Holding Your Lover's Head in Your Lap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danny contemplates love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by Tribal Theory's, "Simple City".

[Tribal Theory, "Simple City"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2nqTku3pAU&list=PLFZpwVQo1Q-asUm1d-YwV7FII6WBuGIWy&index=113&shuffle=230)

It's a beautiful, sunny day. Danny can admit that. He can also admit that he's happy to be indoors, in spite of a part of his conscience which tries to guilt him into being outside, not wasting a good day. A remnant from his childhood where good weather was never a guarantee, never as constant as it is in Hawaii.  
  
Steve's napping on the couch. Mouth hanging open, head nestled on Danny's lap, one hand resting on his chest, the other dangling over the side of the couch. Like this, he looks peaceful, almost childlike in the trust that he displays in the simple act of dozing on the couch, head in his partner's lap, looking for all the world like he's got nothing to worry about. Like he hasn't been suffering from a week sleepless nights.  
  
Danny runs his fingers through Steve's short hair. It's softer than it looks, and Danny's heart does a funny little flutter that dives down into his stomach and back up, because he's the only one who gets to touch Steve like this. It's an intimate act, and one that Danny cherishes almost as much as he cherishes the kissing and sex, and everything else that he and Steve share.  
  
Danny's happy, and in love in a way he's never been before. It's a beautiful day, and there's nowhere he'd rather be than sitting on the couch, running his fingers through Steve's hair, holding his partner while he sleeps, keeping Steve safe and secure, and the nightmares at bay, at least for the day.  
  
This is love:  
  
It's as simple as sitting on the couch on a beautiful day when the sun is shining, and there's not a cloud in the sky, holding the person who you can't fathom living without while he sleeps peacefully for the first time in a solid week; fingers combing through hair soft as downy feathers; listening to the sound of the ocean as it comes to shore, quiet, yet as regular as open mouth snores.


End file.
